


the boy with the moon eyes

by songs



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: AU, Canon Divergence, I'm so sorry, M/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-21
Updated: 2014-08-21
Packaged: 2018-02-14 04:32:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2178027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songs/pseuds/songs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Long last we meet, only for me to leave hurriedly</p><p>for I could not recognize you,</p><p>like the moon hidden behind the clouds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the boy with the moon eyes

i.

 

The boy with the moon eyes looks sad more often than not.

 

Gon notices this—notices  _him_ —all by accident. It happens during classtime, one day, somewhere between Math and Poetry. The teachers are switching rooms and Gon isn’t paying much attention; he’s never been good with math, but he’s never really liked poems, either. They’re just as bad as equations, with words and feelings he cannot know or place.

 

So he lingers on what he  _does_ know; his gaze drifts to the window at the side of the room, to the green and blue beyond the glass. He hears the teacher upfront shuffling papers, reciting a line of poetry:  _Long last we meet, only for me to leave hurriedly—_

 

A chill traces down Gon’s back, as if a ghost or wind has parted through him. He blinks, once, twice, and then turns back to the window.

 

— _for I could not recognize you, like the moon hidden behind the clouds._

__

The light is blocked.

 

And the empty seat by the window isn’t empty anymore.

 

_What?_

 

Gon has always prided himself on being perceptive, on noticing things. But for the life of him, he cannot remember when or how the boy with moon eyes appeared and began to sit by the window.  _It happens somewhere between Math and Poetry, between thought and heart—_ and Gon notices him every day after that.

 

The boy by the window. The boy with the moon eyes.

 

_The boy with the longing eyes._

 

ii.

 

His name is Killua.

 

Gon figures this out with the assistance of the godsend that is the Roll Call. Otherwise he really would have no idea what to call the boy, other than The Boy With The Moon Eyes, which really sounds more like song than a name.

 

(Although Killua  _does_ look songlike, storylike, and it  _does_  fit pretty well.)

 

But Killua doesn’t seem to be the type who likes stories and songs all that much.

 

No one really talks to or of him. He just sits there, by the window, until he doesn’t. When classes finish, he walks out into the hall with everyone else, but by the time Gon tries to catch up with him, he’s always disappeared, as though he’d never been there in the first place.

 

Sometimes Gon wonders if he just imagined him up, from some sleepy, day-dreaming place in the back of his mind. But there is something about Killua that almost seems surreal,  _ethereal_ —beyond anything or anyone Gon will ever learn or feel or reach.

 

And Gon doesn’t like that.

 

So—

 

iii.

 

“I’m Gon!”

 

Killua blinks up at him, and Gon grins, dragging his chair so that he’s sitting on the opposite side of Killua’s desk. There’s a slight twitch in the other boy’s face, like Gon has just struck a nerve, or maybe gold, and Gon _feels_  his smile tug wider on his lips.

 

“Nice to meet you,” he adds, and Killua just  _stares_ at him, with those moon-round eyes.

 

“I,” Killua starts, then stops, before saying, “Uh. I’m Killua.”

 

“I know,” Gon chimes, and Killua’s eyes do something different. There’s a gleam to them that wasn’t there before— a calculating look, a questioning stare. For whatever reason, Gon does not dislike that look, but he doesn’t like it, either. So he amends, “The teacher calls your name on the attendance list, y’know.”

 

“Oh,” Killua says, the syllable heavy with—disappointment? Gon doesn’t know. “That’s… right.”

 

A spell of silence. The classroom is bustling with chatter—it’s lunchtime, after all. Gon toys with the bento on his lap—rice and chicken and oranges, made especially by Mito-san _—_  before blurting: “Wanna be friends?”

 

This gets him an entirely different look. And Gon  _likes_ this look, wholeheartedly; Killua’s face dusts red as rouge when he sputters, “ _W-what_!”

 

“Friends,” Gon repeats, like he is speaking to a child. “We can talk and play games and eat together. That’s what friends do!”

 

Killua appears to be a cross between Extremely Embarrassed and Extremely…Sad? That wistful glimmer creeps up into his expression, again, before it vanishes completely, bending back into angles of pearl skin.

 

“Idiot,” Killua snaps, but it’s somewhat soft, almost fond. “You can’t just go up to people and say things like that.”

 

“Eh?” Gon whines. “Why not? I wanna be friends with Killua!”

 

“Keep your voice down!” Killua hisses. “People can hear you!”

 

“So what!”

 

“Are you dumb? What do you mean,  _so what?_ It’s embarrassing!”

 

“But I want to be friends!”

 

“ _Fine,_ then!”

 

“Fine?” Gon echoes, excitement lacing into his tone. “Really? You mean it?”

 

Killua blanches, as if just realizing himself. “I. Um. I guess. Since you insisted.”

 

Gon beams.

 

“You can’t take it back, now! We’re friends!” He holds out his pinky. “Promise?”

 

Killua stares, without moving his hand, for a moment too long. And in that moment Gon sees: sadness, a sadness too old and too grave for someone so young.

 

And then it’s gone.

 

“Whoever breaks it has to swallow a thousand needles, huh?” Killua murmurs, linking his pinky with Gon’s.

 

Gon blinks. That sounds so morbid. “Huh?”

 

Killua flushes, the  _look_ resurfacing and slipping away, again.

 

He smiles. “It’s nothing.”

 

_That yearning look again._

 

“...Just something someone told me, once.”

 

iv.

 

Killua becomes Gon’s first best friend.

 

Leorio and Kurapika don’t really count. They’re  _great_ friends, but they’re older and busy and like to do things like read and study in their spare time, and seem closer to each other than they are to him. He doesn’t mind, really. He’s never minded.

 

And now he has Killua.

 

And Killua is—

 

v.

 

“ _Idiot!”_ Killua screeches. He swats Gon by the palm, but doesn’t shift from his position. He remains rooted, leaning against the tree behind them. “Get your hands out of my hair.”

 

“Eh,” Gon mumbles. “But it’s nice hair.”

 

“It’s  _my_  hair,” he counters. “You need to learn the meaning of  _Personal Space_.”

 

“But it’s  _pretty_  and soft,” Gon whines. “And it looks like stars. C’mon, you’re so mean.”

 

“I-I…” Killua gapes, the words coming and going. “ _I’m_ mean? Y-you! You’re gonna kill me, you know that!”

 

Gon blinks. “I don’t want to do that, though.”

 

Killua sighs. “It wasn’t meant… literally, Gon. It’s a figure of speech.”

 

“Oh,” Gon says, thoughtful. He angles himself away. “I’ll stop, then. I don’t want to make Killua feel bad.”

 

“You…” Killua begins, deflating. “You  _didn’t…_ Agh. Just, go ahead.”

 

Gon brightens. “You sure?”

 

Another sigh. “Positive.”

 

Gon giggles, running his fingers through the swan-white of Killua’s hair. It’s soft as down and Killua, despite himself, hums under the touch.

 

After a beat of quiet, Gon murmurs, “Can I say something?”

 

Killua, with his eyes still shut: “Shoot.”

 

“It might sound weird.”

 

“You’re always weird, though.”

 

“Maybe,” Gon agrees, before saying, “I think I met you, before.”

 

Silence. Gon pinpoints the exact moment when Killua stills, stiffens, his form bone-sharp when he chokes: “ _What_.”

 

“I  _told_ you it was weird,” Gon tells him, nervous about the way Killua is taking this. He thought he’d laugh, maybe, or call him an idiot. But his face is changing, sifting like water, making way for The Other Killua, the Killua Gon can only catch in snappy glimpses, in knots of longing.  _The Boy With The Moon Eyes._ “But… I mean it. We met only a few months ago. But it’s like it was longer than that, too.”

 

“A month is a long time,” Killua says, at length. “You’re just being dumb.”

 

“No,” Gon says, getting annoyed. “I’m being serious.”

 

“Well,” Killua snaps. “You need to  _stop_.”

 

In an instant, he is standing, and Gon follows the movement; Killua cards through his hair-- _the same hair Gon was touching, just a second ago_ \-- his hand jerking erratically, before folding like paper at his side.

 

He says, “I need to go.”

 

Gon almost says  _Wait_ , but instead he says: “Alright.”

 

vi.

 

That night, Gon dreams strange dreams—of islands shaped like whales and Greed, and blood-magicians with cards, so many cards— _Witch’s Love Potion, Patch of Shore_ —and magic water spilling from glass and lightning and rock-paper-scissors and then: Ants. Ants with people’s faces. Monsters with people’s faces.

 

Monsters with Gon’s face, Sadness with Killua’s face. Lightning. A hand. A voice.

 

_Killua’s voice._

_Wake up, idiot,_ he’s begging, pleading. And Gon almost laughs. He can’t wake up right now. He's still in the middle of a dream.  _Wake up, idiot, you idiot, we could’ve taken it together, I could’ve helped you, why, why—you_ idiot.

I’m fine, Gon tries to say, but it falters in the dark dreamscape. I’m fine, he tries again, and it is soundless.

 

 _Don’t leave me,_ Killua chokes,  _Don’t go._

 

I’m right here, Gon cannot say.

 

Killua’s star-skin is bruised and mottled, his hair coarse as lightning. He looks both older and younger than the Killua he knows, and that is when Gon realizes that  _this_ is the face Killua hides—when they’re playing video games, when they’re running in parks, eating ice cream. This is the face he sees, sometimes, the face of a stranger, of a long-lost—

 

 _Why didn’t you listen to me? Why did you say I had nothing to do with it?_ Killua is crying—sobbing, now.  _To me, you’re…_

I’m right here, Gon cannot say.

 

_…everything._

vii.

 

“I’m going to save you. No matter what it takes.”

 

 _I’m right here_ , Gon cannot say.

 

“No matter what,” Killua repeats.

 

 _Don’t do this,_ Gon cannot say.

 

Killua’s nails go sharp as knives, and he brings them to his own neck—

“They can take me, instead…"

 _Don’t do this,_ Gon cannot say.

"I’ll see you, there…”

 

viii.

 

Gon awakens with a start.

 

“Killua,” he says, automatically, the name leaden in his throat. “ _Killua_.”

 

Where has he heard that name, before?

 

ix.

 

In class, Gon keeps peering to the spot by the window, as if he is waiting for someone. But no one is there. The seat is empty.

 

The teacher is talking about a poem—a poem they read months ago, in Autumn.

 

_Long last we meet, only for me to leave hurriedly_

_for I could not recognize you,_

_like the moon hidden behind the clouds._

 

“Killua,” he says again, under his breath.

 

x.

 

No one answers.

 

xi.

 

_What do you want to be in your next life?_

_I dunno. How ‘bout you?_

_In my next life, I want to be me and meet you again._

 

_Idiot!_

_I’m serious._

 

_Sure, you are._

 

_I really, really am!_

 

_You won’t remember me, though. That’s not how it works._

_Why?_

_You never heard the myth?_

_What myth?_

_If you meet someone from your past life, and you remember them..._

xii.

 

_…they have to disappear._

**Author's Note:**

> 1) inspired by nageesuh from tumblr's tag 'the boy with the moon eyes'  
> 2) poem taken from ancient japanese 'hundred poems'!


End file.
